


memento mori

by tender_anaphylaxis



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Cross-Generational Incest, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dirty Talk, Discussion of Violent Death, Dry Humping, Extremely Dubious Consent, Graphic Violence As Dirty Talk, Grooming, Incest, M/M, Manipulation, Snuff Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:01:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26186842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tender_anaphylaxis/pseuds/tender_anaphylaxis
Summary: "Then tell me, boy," Solus drawls, seating Zenos more comfortably in his lap. While the boy already towers over much of the servantry, he can but barely straddle his grandfather's knee. "How should it have been done?"Solus zos Galvus sees uncommon potential in his great-grandson.mind the tags & warnings. the vibes here are rancid.
Relationships: Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Zenos yae Galvus
Comments: 9
Kudos: 36
Collections: RelationShipping 2020





	memento mori

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EctoJyunk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EctoJyunk/gifts).



> huge thanks to  arianne for thoughts, input, guidance, and all around emotional support as i wrote this horrible thing
> 
> this fic is strongly inspired by the Chronicles of Light short story, The Hunt Begins, but reads it as an idealized account. basically i figured ya boy got his snuff fetish from somewhere and it may as well have been the assassination attempt at age 14.
> 
> please, uh, enjoy

The first time they meet, Zenos is seven.

He's old enough to attend ceremonies, now, and as a prince, it's quite expected of him. A precocious, solemn child, his great-grandson is already infamous among his tutors for inattention, tardiness, and fits of temper. Clear, clever blue eyes, eyes that never seemed to look straight at you -- not out of fear, or disrespect; a kind of distance that makes one think something more interesting must be hanging just over their shoulder.

But Solus meets his eyes and he _recognizes_ him. Solus doesn't _recognize_ his children.

After the speech -- some commemoration of victory in battle, the precise cause of the occasion lost completely in those eyes -- he seeks him out, something that startles both the boy and his father. Varis gives him a venomous look, but it's clear he only stands by his child for appearances. He makes no attempt to deflect Solus from speaking with him.

"What's your name, boy?" 

"Zenos." There's a pause, and Varis clears his throat. The boy corrects himself unhurriedly. "Zenos, your Radiance."

Solus grunts, taking stock of the thin, reedy child. Taking after his mother, from the looks of it: all legs and elbows and those piercing blue eyes. They meet with his, directly, and this, from Varis' slight intake of breath, is not something that happens often. Solus raises an eyebrow. A beat, two they hold each others' gaze, in a moment that must seem odd to the others in attendance, but Solus can't bring himself to care.

Zenos is the first to speak. In a small, young voice, yet radiating calm far outweighing his years, he asks, "Your Radiance, have we met before?" 

Varis' whole body goes straight as a rod, and he raises a hand, as if intending to shush the child, or strike him, or make some kind of platitude to salvage the situation, lest it reflect on himself. Before he can do any of that, Solus laughs; a brief, loud bark of laughter that at once defuses the tension in the room and heightens it.

"I suggest you impress upon your son the value of good manners. Varis," Solus says, still looking straight at Zenos. "And you, boy. I'll be keeping an eye on you."

* * *

The attempt on his life does not go as it does in the papers.

Uncannily clever as the child may be, Zenos is but a boy of fourteen years, facing an adult opponent with nothing to lose. The papers will say it was effortless, premeditated, ruthless -- as they should -- but what crawls into Solus' study is a shaking boy, cut in a thousand places, too much blood slicking his small, lanky form.

He has one of his personal servants clean him up. She knows what will happen if she dares speak of the occasion.

He's silent for much of the experience, even when his breathing slows and he stops trembling so much. Zenos, as far as Solus has heard, has always been a reticent creature, but it was quite obvious he was still in shock.

"Boy."

That seems to rouse him, big blue eyes turning up to him. Zenos is agitated, frightened, buzzing with energy and wide-eyed, but as far as Solus could tell, fear was not the only thing that wavered his voice.

"Is he dead?"

"Your Radiance--"

Solus scoffs, and Zenos flinches back from the sound. "I am your pater familias," he says. "Call me 'grandfather,' boy. Now, is he _dead?_ "

Zenos stares up at him, mouth gaping for a moment , until he manages to form words. "Yes, Grandfather." Another soft pause, the hesitation so unlike his usual self. Panic? Excitement? Zenos lets out a huff of breath that could have been the beginnings of a sob, or a laugh, or a little moan. "He's dead. I won."

Solus grunts approvingly. "Good boy."

The papers will say it was an effortless, ruthless victory. Just a hint of tension for the drama of it, perhaps, but the propaganda machine would not tolerate an onze of weakness in the prince. As they should, as they must. But Solus has seen the truth of it, the broken thing he was, and through the cracks he may have even seen salvation.

* * *

They become closer, in the weeks that follow; Varis gnashes his teeth about it, but Solus begins taking him to the theater, and, occasionally, sitting in on the prince's training sessions. Solo, now, just Zenos and an empty room and his stubborn, single-minded practice of the Unyielding Blade technique. His focus is incredible in one so young. Again and again he sends ripples of force across the sparring chamber, tossing aether crystals aside as he drains them with little thought to the cost. Impressive command of aether for one insensitive entirely to its presence -- but Solus supposed that was the reason for the rote approach. What couldn't be felt had to be brought to muscle memory.

On one such occasion, Zenos' labors had continued long into the night, and with the fatigue, his form had gotten sloppy. He'd managed to cut himself fairly badly -- a cut across the hand from an involuntary attempt to shield himself from the eye-watering backblast. Instead of immediately call a medicus, Solus stands and bids the boy to his study, where he might avail himself of his personal medical kit. After all, it would take longer to rouse a medicus at this hour. A lie; they work in shifts, and it's likely Zenos knows it. But when Solus leaves, he follows.

"You need not overextend yourself for me, boy," Solus says, settling in his chair with a groan of old bones. "I am not so easily impressed by a borrowed parlor trick."

"I'm not," Zenos lies, hissing as he rinses the cut with antiseptic. He dresses the wound smartly. He's done this before. "I don't want to rely on the crystals any longer than I have to. To that end, I must train."

"You seek to manipulate aether?" Solus scoffs. "Diligence is well and good, but remain aware of your own limitations, boy."

"They won't be limitations for long if I refuse to accept them." The confidence and conviction in his words surprises Solus for a moment. But only a moment. "The Eorzean conjurers draw aether from the air, not their own bodies. Why cannot I do the same? The same way a blind man learns the shape of his home, I should learn to wield aether for myself."

It was the most Zenos had spoken in weeks. Solus lets that hang in the air as long as it might, stroking his beard.

"You still think of your tutor, don't you, boy?" He says, and leans forward, eyes glittering. Zenos stiffens slightly, aware of being caught in the lie, and, slowly, turns to face him.

"Yes, Grandfather," he says, softly. "I do."

Solus watches him. In his eyes and in his manner there's a potent cocktail of emotions -- fear, loss, exhilaration, and, yes, arousal. He thinks, perhaps, something is quickening in him; that brush with death awakening something greater. Solus has ever liked drawing out potential, and if he's right about what it is that sits before him -- well, this had the opportunity to be _delicious._

"Come." Solus leans back, offers out his lap to the boy. Zenos _stares_ at him, mouth agape. To an observer, it might seem an uncharacteristically kind gesture; an old man soothing a traumatized grandson. Solus supposes it could be interpreted thus. But as Zenos haltingly allows himself to climb into his lap, no comfort comes to his small form; his slender body tenses up like a bowstring, drawn to the point of snapping.

"I sense you do not _fear_ him," Solus muses aloud, shifting so Zenos might find a place to balance across his lap. One of his slender hands grips the armrest white-knuckled, and he softly shivers. 

"No. He was a fool." Zenos' voice is hushed, but all that adolescent indignation is there. "He had the perfect chance to kill me -- for weeks, in fact -- and yet he waited until I had learned all I needed to make his move. Even then, he could have struck me down, and _still_ he found a way to foul it up. I'm embarrassed to have participated in such idiocy."

He sounds arrogant, yes, and petulant, but deep down in the teenage sophistry Solus can hear genuine disappointment, longing, _hunger._ To come so close to death and be robbed of its touch... perhaps that was what tortured his grandson so.

"Then tell me, boy," Solus drawls, seating Zenos more comfortably in his lap. While the boy already towers over much of the servantry, he can but barely straddle his grandfather's knee. "How should it have been done?"

There's a pregnant pause, Zenos searching his great-grandfather's face to discern what exactly he wanted out of the question. But it doesn't last long. "He should have waited," He begins calmly enough, but his young voice cracks a little as he continues. "I'd meant to throw away the crystal after one use. I never expected it to last longer. So if he had contained himself, he could have easily waited until my guard was down, and..." His voice drops to a reverent whisper. "And taken the advantage."

"You ask much of a savage," Solus notes with some amusement, not missing the near-imperceptible shudder at the sensation of a large hand pressing down his back. Enough to explain away as steadying, not that his grandson would dare question him.

"Perhaps, Grandfather," Zenos said, and now the tremble in his voice is quite obvious. "But you asked me how he _should_ have done it, not how he _could_ have."

There was something in him, embers lying dormant in his clear blue eyes, begging for a breath to set them alight. Solus regards him with naked interest, and wonders how he will burn.

"Well, then. Continue." At Zenos' questioning look, Solus clarifies; "you're stubborn. Persistent. How would he kill you if he wanted to make sure the job was done?"

Zenos' breath hitches. His pale skin flushes so pretty.

"Relying on the Unyielding Blade so heavily in the first place was a mistake," Zenos began, slightly breathless. Solus felt him squirm slightly on his thigh.. "If he had used it merely to stun me, he could have gotten in close and used his -- his size to his advantage."

Solus watches his face carefully. The boy seems unused to such direct eye contact, but holds his gaze. The more he makes the boy talk about his own death, the more restless and flushed he seems to get. Oh, he's been _ruminating_ on this. The realization makes a small smile twitch at the edges of his lips -- perhaps he, too, is having trouble staying in character. "And then, boy?" Solus's voice lowers to a rumble. "Finish it."

"If he wanted to escape, he would have strangled me," Zenos answers too quickly, breathily, intonation going oddly sing-song. A willowy hand comes up and grips Solus' sleeve. "No noise. Little struggling. No blood. His hands..." His other hand comes up to touch his throat; slender fingers brush his jugular. "...could eas'ly crush my windpipe. I'd be dead without even being able to scream for help."

The way his expression changes as he recites his own would-be death fascinates Solus. "Morbid interests for a boy your age," he comments. "Do you often imagine your own death?"

"Yes." His voice is soft, but the response is immediate. "So much it feels like memory."

Interesting. He'd have to address that later.

"You forget, however, that he _didn't_ want to escape," Solus says, instead, shifting his leg so Zenos can do nothing but slide closer into him. "Men's motives are not always so simple as self-preservation. Your late tutor believed he had nothing left to lose -- at least, nothing so precious as the opportunity on your life. Had he been able to kill you, he would have wanted to leave a _message._ " 

The hand still resting at the small of Zenos' back presses him close, and, sure enough, Solus can feel his hardness against his hip. A tiny gasp escapes his grandson, both hands now gripping Solus' shirt. But he raises his head, as if compelled, as if he could do nothing else, and says, "A message?"

"Oh, yes, boy, a message. A message written in blood." He bends down low, beard tickling Zenos' reddened ear. "Would he gut you or slit your throat first, I wonder? Take your head as a trophy?" With each increasingly grisly image, Zenos' breath gets quicker, hips beginning to make tiny, jerky thrusts against his trouser leg."You've been thrashed so soundly these past weeks none would think to act on your screams at all. Not until it was too late."

"Grandfather--" The epithet comes out as little more than a whimper into his shoulder, and that won't do. Solus grips a handful of the boy's golden hair and pulls his head back. He needs to see his face. "Oh--" Zenos struggles in his grasp, but only slightly, and his hips go on squirming against him. He tries to stop himself, clearly ashamed, but some dam has broken in him that had been cracked since that day.

"No quick end for the blood of the Emperor, oh, no." Solus _grins,_ in a way he hasn't in years, at the way Zenos' carefully crafted apathy falls apart with every heated word. "He would have made you _suffer._ Perhaps pinned you to the ground like a butterfly with his blade, and while you writhed, slit your belly and spilled your offal like a _ritual beast._ "

"You ask much of a savage, Grandfather," Zenos surprises him by responding breathlessly, steadying himself with hands clutched at his chest. "He was little more than -- _ah_ \-- a rabid animal at the end."

"Was he, boy?" 

" _Yes._ " The boy is working _himself_ up, now. It had taken him vanishingly little time to reach this point, though Solus supposes it is only natural at his age. He ruts at his trouser leg like a dog, but his eyes remain clear and fixed on him, unblinking, as if searching for something. "He would have sooner -- b-bit down on my _jugular_ and watched my lifesblood leak away, blood bubbling up between his teeth on ragged exhale--but, oh, to watch his _face_..."

"Go ahead, imagine it. The look in his eyes as he takes your life."

"O-oh--"

Zenos stills, trembling, a look of shock painted across his face as what may be his first orgasm rips through him on his great-grandfather's knee.


End file.
